Dr. Dog at Portland's Doug Fir

I had been anticipating last night for weeks, trying not to get my hopes up or set my expectations too high. Thankfully, and delightfully I might add, Dr. Dog did not disappoint. Nor did the opening bands--two relatively unknown groups called Hacienda and Delta Spirit, the latter of which has a very bright future.

Working up the crowd into a state of simultaneous awe and rapture, Delta Spirit won over the room and sent people flocking to the merch table after their set. They’re a five-piece from San Diego with a profound, stirring sound and a recent debut album that’s getting lots of attention. One song, “Children,” was particularly rousing and almost felt like a deathbed confession or a reminder to not go gentle into that good night. The guitar player hit the switch on his Rickenbacker and set loose a reverb-laden chord progression with an echoing delay that sounded and felt like a transformative journey to the other side of consciousness. The rest of the band soon joined in, the drummer simply pounding, the singer exorcising some pent-up demon and woefully sucking on his harmonica. It was a spiritual experience and one I won’t soon forget.
I soon snapped out of the Delta Spirit spell, excited by the prospect of seeing and hearing Dr. Dog. I hit the bar and got one for my hand and one for my pocket before finding a spot near the middle of the floor. When they came out, they received a warm welcome and immediately launched into “The Old Days” off Fate, their new album. The song and, subsequently, the show, became an instant party when, about halfway through, it sped up and went to space-circus-land, taking the audience along for the ride. Their music is layered, artfully constructed pop with the unmistakable influence of bands like The Beatles and The Band, at once solemnly heartbreaking and jubilantly whimsical. As fans swayed and sang joyously to “Ain’t It Strange” and “The Breeze,” the Dog reveled in the excitement, tearing through faster versions of “My Old Ways” and “The Girl” while dancing happily and testing the limits of the small stage. Sharing lead vocal duties, the bass player and one of the guitarists sounded great, replicating their respective chord-shredding shout and delicate pitch live and proving that they weren’t just studio flukes. Too, the instrumentation was spot-on--not one of the five missed a beat; this might have been most noticeable on the slow-burning, somewhat intricate rocker "The Beach," which really shook shit up. Whether you dig the songs or not, you can’t deny the musical talent these guys possess. When it came time to end the show, they closed with “Die, Die, Die,” an acquiescent song about giving up built on pervasive percussion. As it grew in intensity, members of the supporting acts slowly began filing onstage with tambourines, maracas, extra drums, even the lid of an old trashcan, and joined the band for one last hurrah. The whole affair was just too damn cool and I suggest anybody reading this heed the following as advice, not as warning: BEWARE OF DOG. The flash on my camera broke too.